Gov. Patrick proud to discriminate

Saturday

Feb 8, 2014 at 12:02 PM

By Ronald N. Cogliano

Throughout his term, and again in his final State of the State address last week, Gov. Deval Patrick spoke of "creating opportunity" in the economy, as if it was a novel idea. Yet, his administration has enforced a policy that limits opportunity for thousands of workers for the benefit of a select few.

In his speech, he bragged about the state and organized labor arranging Project Labor Agreements, which sounds innocuous to most people. What he didn't tell was the truth about PLAs. The agreements allow only union construction workers on projects. In exchange, the unions agree not to strike or disrupt the project. What a deal.

Massachusetts, under orders from Patrick, openly and proudly bans 80 percent of the state's construction workforce — the non-unionized workers —from working on certain state projects. Patrick boasts of discriminating against hardworking men and women solely because they made a personal decision to not join a union. He boasts of playing favorites with his political allies in organized labor.

"I'm proud of our work with Massachusetts unions," he said.

It would be unimaginable for the state to ban union members from a construction project. The merit shop community would be the first to oppose any such thing. And yet our governor bans nonunion workers, and it's somehow acceptable because he labels it "opportunity."

Merit shop employees are every bit as well trained and licensed as their union counterparts, and they earn comparable, if not superior, wages and benefits. And while they are not allowed to work on public projects with PLAs, they nonetheless pay state taxes to finance the endeavors.

"This commonwealth is working with labor for the good of labor interests," said the governor.

Patrick's disdain for nonunion workers does not end in the construction industry. When Patrick speaks of "labor," he means only organized labor, and not the vast majority of working men and women who choose to not belong to a union. Of all wage and salary workers in Massachusetts, just 14.6 percent belong to unions, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. To Patrick, the other 85 percent are the source of tax revenue to pay for his union giveaways.

What Patrick either does not know or will not admit, is that PLAs increase project costs by limiting competition among bidders. Obviously Patrick has not read the studies by the Beacon Hill Institute, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau and others about the increased costs of PLAs, because he makes statements like this one:

"We've used project labor agreements on large, complex infrastructure projects where we can show (and you can deliver) significant savings." How would Patrick know there are savings when he refuses to allow a majority of the construction industry to bid on these projects?

The Patrick administration has given union labor a monopoly on multimillion-dollar construction projects such as the renovations of UMass-Boston and repairs to the Longfellow and Whittier bridges. Together, those projects total $1.3 billion.

Numerous studies estimate PLAs increase project costs in the range of 10 to 20 percent, which means Patrick's deal with organized labor is costing taxpayers between $130 million and $260 million extra. This is money that could have been used for other infrastructure costs, to lower fees for students at UMass, or to reduce the size of Patrick's tax increases. Instead, it's going into the unions' pockets at no benefit to the commonwealth or its citizens.

Before wasting money on PLAs, Patrick could have spoken to former Fall River Mayor Edward Lambert, who left elected office for a job in the administration. In Fall River, Lambert watched his PLA on a multi-school project result in budget-busting bids from a handful of union contractors. Lambert scrapped the PLA and put the project back out to bid. The number of bidders doubled as merit shop contractors joined the competition and the prices fell sharply.

Lambert concluded, "With more bidders, you tend to get a better price."

Sadly, a better price and creating real opportunity for all was never Patrick's goal. From Day One, his mission has been to enrich his allies in organized labor at the expense of our state and citizens. And as he said the other night, he's proud of it.

Ronald N. Cogliano is president of the Merit Construction Alliance, based in Kingston.